On March 24, 2015, the anti-monopoly committee of Ukraine gave recommendations to the 13 largest food retailers as regards embedding measures to reduce retail prices of food to its previous level reported before an increase in demand for food, the ministerial press-office reports. 

Because of the speedy growth in demand and simultaneous increase in prices of food, in particular, wheat flour, sugar, buckwheat cereal, sunflower oil, pasta products, oatmeal and salt from February 21 to 28, 2015, the AMC has commenced investigations of activities of the largest trading networks in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnepropetrovsk, Odesa and Kharkiv, including food suppliers and manufacturers to check compliance with the requirements set out in the legislation on protection of economic competition. The preliminary analysis of the data from retailers showed that some retailers making their pricing decisions on certain foodstuff allowed fast growth in retail prices:

• on increase in purchase price of buckwheat by 16%, retail prices raised by 39%;

• on increase in purchase price of wheat flour by 58%, retail prices raised by 70%;

• with almost unchangeable purchase price of rock salt during February this year, retail prices rose by 13%.

So, the average margin in the retail supply chain between sale and purchase prices of certain food during higher demand period has risen by more than 50%.

However, for today, there are some grounds for lowering retail prices of main food products to the level of those before the food demand increased. There is the tendency now to stabilize the official exchange rate of hryvnia against foreign currencies and lower the prices of fuel and lubricant additives.

In addition, according to the data from UkrAgroConsult consulting agency, as of March 18, 2015, wholesale prices of sugar dropped (by 30%, equalling 10 900 hryvnias/tonnes), sunflower oil (by 23.4% up to 18 000 hryvnias/tonnes), wheat flour of higher degree (by 10% up to 7000 hryvnias/tonnes).

Therefore, in order to prevent violation of the law on protection of economic competition, the anti-monopoly committee of Ukraine has given mandatory recommendations to the 13 trading networks, namely:

PAKKO-holding Ltd., Fozzy-Food Ltd., Furshet Center subsidiary, Foodmarket Ltd., Billa Ukraine PII, RKO Ltd., ATB-Market Ltd., METRO Cash & Carry Ltd., Ashan Ukraine Gipermarket Ltd., Omega Ltd., Tavria Plus PE, Tavria-V Ltd., Barvinok TN Ltd.

The said above entities must notify the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine of the outcome of discussion within ten days from the date the recommendations are received.